of all their lives, they would have paid more attention to those petty things that slip by so unnoticed, so unremembered. Time, however, is slow when nothing happens; and those cracks in the foundation seemed so unrelated, so trivial, that each incident was absorbed and forgotten, the way breakfast and sunset are forgotten – as part of the sameness that filled everyone’s days, especially theirs, especially the days of the young, when they gulped the air and lived to see the better world, the grown-up world, when they could not wait for the days to end so that they could get on with the rest of their lives.
February snowed into March. And in March, it rained.
The smell of spring came with the winds and the storms. There was a tornado alert every day, and rain every day, and sun every day, too. A typical Kansas March.
Tully was busy with Robin, with keeping him away from her mother, and busy keeping herself away from her mother. She received a small scare in the first week of March when she found a letter addressed to Hedda Makker in the mailbox one afternoon. What surprised Tully about the letter wasn’t that it was addressed to Hedda Makker, but that the address was handwritten. Hedda, besides bills, never received anything – certainly nothing handwritten. Upon closer examination, Tully noticed Hedda was misspelled. Heda Makker, it said. The Grove. Okay, thought Tully, and took it upon herself to commit a federal offense.
She was glad she did when she tore open the envelope. ‘Mrs Makker,’ the note said. ‘Your daughter is fooling around with my boyfriend. A lot. Every week. She stole him from me and now she’s lying to you every Wednesday and Sunday.’
The note was unsigned. Tully wasn’t so much stunned by the arrival of the note. She half expected some form of sabotage. What surprised her was the depth and accuracy of Gail’s knowledge. Not only did she know what days Tully met Robin, but she also knew to a useful extent the difficulties Tully had with her mother.
Tully tore up the letter, deciding to keep very quiet about it to everyone. She figured that Gail must have gotten all that information from the guileless, unsuspecting Julie, who was in the same English class. If Gail now thought her ploy had succeeded in getting Tully in deep shit, then she wouldn’t attempt any more war missions.
Julie was busy with the debating society, the history club, the current events club. ‘Talk is the one four-letter word you and Tom can enjoy together,’ Tully called it.
Jennifer continued to lose weight.
Monday, March 12, at Sunset Court, when Jennifer left the kitchen for a moment, Tully mentioned the weight loss to Lynn Mandolini. Lynn got a little defensive, saying her daughter never looked better.
‘Mrs Mandolini, yes, twenty pounds ago she never looked better. I’ll be surprised if she is a hundred and ten now.’
‘Oh, Tully!’ said Lynn, lighting up and taking a drink. ‘A hundred and ten! Really!’
‘Jen,’ said Tully when Jennifer returned. ‘How much do you weigh?’
Jennifer looked as if she’d been hit. ‘I – I don’t know. Why?’
‘Jennifer, you used to get on the scale twice a day. How much do you weigh now?’
‘Tully, don’t badger her!’ Lynn said loudly.
‘Mom, Mom. It’s okay. I weigh about a hundred and fifteen,’ answered Jennifer.
Lynn looked at Tully with an I-told-you-so look. Tully stared back defiantly.
‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘One hundred fifteen. Would you say that’s about a thirty-five-pound loss since September?’
Later, when they were alone, Tully said, ‘Mandolini, you lie. You lie. How much do you really weigh?’
‘Tully, I did not lie – ’
‘Jennifer, stop! I know your lying face even if your own mother doesn’t. Now, how much?’
Jennifer mumbled something.
‘What?’ said Tully.
‘Ninety-six,’ whispered Jennifer.
Tully was cold for the rest of the evening.
Later that night, in her own home, she slept, after hours of anxious restlessness, after counting 1,750 or 2,750 sheep. She slept at her desk, wind blowing about the curtains and her hair. Her hands were under her face, between her and the wood. Tully slept and dreamed that she was in the desert. She was walking in the desert by herself, she was completely alone, and she was thirsty. It seemed that she had walked for days and had not drunk for days. God! how she wanted to drink. To drink or to die, thought Tully in the desert.
‘Julie, there is something very wrong with Jennifer,’ said Tully, Tuesday morning, March 13, right after homeroom. Julie seemed a little absent-minded. ‘I think she’s anorexic.’
‘Are you crazy?’
‘Julie, I know you haven’t been paying attention to a lot of things lately, but don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Jennifer is now thinner than me.’
Julie looked thoughtful. ‘Well, maybe she does seem a little thin, but –’
‘Julie!’ Tully exclaimed. ‘She is ninety-six pounds! Ninety-six!’
Julie turned red and said, ‘Tully, don’t scream at me! Yes, that seems very thin. Sick, even. But what do you want me to do about it?’
‘Julie!’ Tully folded her hands together, pleading. ‘Don’t you care?’
‘Tully, of course I care. But I have an English report to write by sixth period, and after school we’re going to the Statehouse on a fact-finding mission – Look, she’s always been a little plump and she lost weight lately. And you kind of gained weight lately.’
Tully shook her head. ‘Don’t you get it? I haven’t gained weight lately. And Jen hasn’t just lost weight, she is sick.’
‘I’ve got to get to class,’ said Julie. ‘We’ll talk to her.’
‘You and your stupid fact-finding mission. Where have you been all these months? Where? I don’t know who has more of a problem. Do you know Jen got sixty-fives in all her classes and that’s only because the teachers felt sorry for her? Do you know she has not passed one test since January and is still failing everything?’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Julie, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
‘I know, that’s how. I know because I was talking in gym to two girls who are in Jen’s math class. They told me Mr Schmidt is worried about Jennifer. He keeps talking to his students about her.’
The bell rang. Julie sped down the hall. ‘We’ll talk to her, we will,’ she yelled.
Tully stared after Julie dumbly. Wanting to feel better, she had approached Julie, but now she felt worse. Books pressed hard against her chest, Tully went to class with a punched-in-the-stomach
